This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called 'amphiboly'. More formally speaking, the fallacy of amphiboly occurs when the meaning of a phrase or sentence is indeterminate or ambiguous, particularly as a result of poor syntax, and especially when further inferences are drawn based on the acceptance of an unintended meaning of the passages. Amphibolies can also have the potential to either threaten political careers or make them indefinitely memorable. The ambiguities found in (...) cases of amphiboly usually arise from mistakes in grammar but also from various forms of linguistic booby traps. It is important to note, however, that not all instances of amphiboly are trivial. The interpretation of carelessly constructed legal contracts and wills, for instance, has been known to produce unnecessary and painful conflicts. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant might have stated the central and urgent problem facing contemporary literary theory as the need to seek a path between dogmatism and skepticism. We confront today a multiplicity of critical methods, each filling books and journals with no doubt convincing arguments for its correctness. If we cling to one, denying others possess truth, we are dogmatists; if, however, we grant that two or three or all are equally true, we admit that each is at the same time false (...) in relation to the others’ truth, and so we are skeptics. The “dogmatic employment” of reason, Kant noted, “lands us in dogmatic assertions to which other assertions, equally specious, can always be opposed-that is, in scepticism.”1Into this professional breach steps “pluralism” , claiming it can vindicate sharply limited patterns of reading which nonetheless allow for diversity in the relation of word to idea and, so, of interpreting reader to text. This would make it possible to encompass within a single theory the insights which both camps find in their positions. Clearly, this entices.But do we really understand what pluralism is, if it is at all? Its critical practice already exists—this essay grew from a 1984 conference which sought possible intellectual “foundations” of that practice—but how are these practitioners to understand what they do? Pluralism’s philosophic pedigree may have been neatly sketched by Nelson Goodman as the traditionThat began when Kant exchanged the structure of the world for the structure of the mind, continued when C. I. Lewis exchanged the structure of the mind for the structure of concepts, and that now proceeds to exchange the structure of concepts for the structure of the several symbols systems of the sciences, philosophy, the arts, perception, and everyday discourse. The movement is from unique truth and a world fixed and found to a diversity of right and even conflicting versions of world in the making.2 1. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith , p. 57; all further references to this work, abbreviated CPR, will be included in the text.2. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking , p. x. Since Lewis is not often classified among pluralists, I support Goodman by calling attention to Pepper having been Lewis’ student and to Lewis’ observation that he and Pepper “have been, so to say, continuously aware of each other, and of a common background of thought…. I should like to think that our respective views, both in theory of value and in ethics, are mutually supplementary rather than rival theories” . Numerous essays from this volume are useful for situating Lewis. Bruch Erlich is associate professor of English and modern languages at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln where he teaches comparative literature and literary theory. He has published on Shakespeare, Walter Benjamin, and intellectual history and is preparing a book on cognitive universals in tension with the experience of historical change, Unintelligible Limits: Time, meaning, and a Hermeneutic of Suffering. (shrink)

Amphiboly has been widely recognized, starting from the time of Aristotle, as an informal fallacy arising from grammatical ambiguity. This paper applies the profiles of dialogue tool to the fallacy of amphiboly, providing a five-step evidence-based procedure whereby a syntactically ambiguous sentence uttered in a natural language text can be evaluated as committing a fallacy of amphiboly. A user applies the tool to a natural language text by comparing a descriptive graph, representing how the argumentation actually went, (...) to a normative graph, representing how the argumentation should ideally have proceeded. (shrink)

By Aristotle’s own admission, homonymy and amphiboly, or syntactic homonymy, are unlikely to be accidental features of the Greek language (nor of any language, nor of language as such), but rather a radical evil that can at best be subdued, through recourse to categories, for example. Or we could choose to follow the sophists and exploit it by aiming at an essentially sonorous consensus. But then such texts would constitute a radical evil for translation.

Langton’s (1998) and Allais’ (2015) metaphysical interpretations of Kant’s idealism have given special relevance to Kant’s analysis of the inner/outer dichotomy in the Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection, for they agree that this dichotomy is key to correctly grasping Kant’s distinction between appearances and things in themselves. In this article I argue that Langton’s and Allais’ accounts of Kant’s analysis of the inner/outer dichotomy have major limitations, and therefore that the text should not be read in the way (...) they propose. In order to show these limitations, I examine the overall structure of Kant’s argument in the Amphiboly. Furthermore, I aim to establish the contribution brought by the Amphiboly to the issue of noumenal knowledge and the nature of things in themselves. Langton’s and Allais’ accounts of the relation between appearances and things in themselves as the inner nature of things not only prove to be unwarranted, but indeed to some extent opposite to what I claim to be Kant’s actual stance on things in themselves in the Amphiboly. (shrink)

This paper compares Kant’s and Leibniz’s views on the relation between knowing subjects and known objects. Kant discusses Leibniz’s philosophy in the ‘Amphiboly’ section of the first Critique. According to Kant, Leibniz’s main error is mistaking objects in space and time for mind-independent things in themselves, that is, for monads. The paper argues that, pace Kant, Leibniz regards objects in space and time as mind-dependent. A deeper divergence between the two philosophers concerns knowing subjects. For Leibniz, they are substances. (...) For Kant, we cannot know whether they are substances. Kant conceives of knowing subjects as complex systems of cognitive capacities. (shrink)

In this dissertation it is argued that Kant's critique of Leibniz as found in the amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason derives from his theory of reflection. It is argued further that this unfocused and fragmentary amphiboly chapter, which contains the Leibniz-critique, can be seen to have a previously unsuspected unity to it. The keys to perceiving this unity are the appendix's purpose, structure and mosaic composition. ;The primary purpose of the appendix is not to present (...) Kant's criticisms of Leibniz as is commonly thought, but rather it is to sketch his theory of reflection. Not only is this attested to by Kant himself , it is also made evident by the structure of the appendix. Structurally, the appendix is built around an introduction to the operation of transcendental reflection and a discussion of the concepts of reflection, this being the structure of each of the first three sections. By means of each pair of concepts of reflection Kant claims to summarize the basic tenets and origin of Leibniz's philosophy. Kant also claims that Leibnizls whole philosophy rests on one seminal error, which will be shown to be the omission of the operation of transcendental reflection. To be sure, Kant claims Leibniz made a number of other errors, but these various errors all derive from the omission of transcendental reflection. ;While this omission can be used to explain the other more well-known epistemological mistakes with which Kant charges Leibniz, it is undeniable that there are certain textual difficulties with the appendix. These can be dealt with by the hypothesis that the different sections were composed at different times and than pieced together without detailed revisions. If such a mosaic composition is granted, then some allowance can be made for the noticeable incongruities between these sections and for occasional problematic passages. This does not, however, warrant the claim that the appendix is not properly placed or unimportant. On the contrary, supplemented by clearer statements of Kant's theory of reflection and of his Leibniz-critique, the following interpretation shows that the appendix is properly placed and integral to the primary aims of the Critique of Pure Reason. (shrink)

In the neglected 'Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection,' Kant introduces a new transcendental activity, Transcendental Deliberation. It aims to determine to which faculty a representation belongs and does so by examining the representation's relationships to other representations. This enterprise yields some powerful ideas. Some of the relationships studied have great interest, numerical identity in particular. Indeed, seeing Kant discuss it here, one wonders why he did not include it in the Table of Categories. Kant gives a solid argument (...) for the necessity of a sensible element in representations, something not found elsewhere in the Transcendental Analytic. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIf it seems unquestionable that C. I. Lewis is a Kantian in important respects, it is more difficult to determine what, if anything, is original about his Kantianism. For it might be argued that Lewis’ Kantianism simply reflects an approach to the a priori which was very common in the first half of the twentieth century, namely, the effort to make the a priori relative. In this paper, I will argue that Lewis’ Kantianism does present original features. The latter can (...) be detected by focusing on Lewis’ account of the method of philosophy in the first chapter of Mind and the World Order. In that context, Lewis argues that the method of philosophy should be reflective and critical. It will be my contention that this understanding of philosophy involves a therapeutic perspective, which bears important resemblances to Kant’s account of transcendental reflection in the Amphiboly of the Critique of Pure Reason. I will illustrate how this therapeutic application of reflection works in Lewis’ metaphysics. In... (shrink)

I explain Kant’s critique of Leibniz’s rejection of real opposition in the Amphiboly in the context of Kant’s pre-Critical writings on vis viva and negative magnitudes and his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Properly contextualized in terms of the vis viva controversy, I argue, Kant’s arguments against Leibniz succeed, even though they are laden with theoretical inconsistencies and operate under false physical premises.

In this article I aim to clarify the nature of Kant’s transformation of rationalist metaphysics into a science by focusing on his conception of transcendental reflection. The aim of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, it is argued, consists primarily in liberating the productive strand of former general metaphysics – its reflection on the a priori elements of all knowledge – from the uncritical application of these elements to all things (within general metaphysics itself) and to things that can only be (...) thought (in special metaphysics). After considering Kant’s conception of metaphysics and his various uses of the term ‘transcendental’ I closely examine his account of logical and transcendental reflection in the section entitled ‘On the Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection’. Whereas commentators generally attribute the activity called transcendental reflection to Kant alone, I contend, first, that Kant regarded philosophy as such to rely on a mode of transcendental reflection and, second, that the critical mode of transcendental reflection enacted in the Critique itself yields insight into the reason why our a priori knowledge is limited to the realm of possible objects. This is illustrated by outlining the difference between Kant’s and Leibniz’ employment of the concepts of reflection. (shrink)

In this article I aim to clarify the nature of Kant’s transformation of rationalist metaphysics into a science by focusing on his conception of transcendental reflection. The aim of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, it is argued, consists primarily in liberating the productive strand of former general metaphysics - its reflection on the a priori elements of all knowledge - from the uncritical application of these elements to all things and to things that can only be thought. After considering Kant’s (...) conception of metaphysics and his various uses of the term ‘transcendental’ I closely examine his account of logical and transcendental reflection in the section entitled ‘On the Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection’. Whereas commentators generally attribute the activity called transcendental reflection to Kant alone, I contend, first, that Kant regarded philosophy as such to rely on a mode of transcendental reflection and, second, that the critical mode of transcendental reflection enacted in the Critique itself yields insight into the reason why our a priori knowledge is limited to the realm of possible objects. This is illustrated by outlining the difference between Kant’s and Leibniz’ employment of the concepts of reflection. (shrink)

For Kant, ‘reflection’ is a technical term with a range of senses. I focus here on the senses of reflection that come to light in Kant's account of logic, and then bring the results to bear on the distinction between ‘logical’ and ‘transcendental’ reflection that surfaces in the Amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. Although recent commentary has followed similar cues, I suggest that it labours under a blind spot, as it neglects Kant's distinction between ‘pure’ and (...) ‘applied’ general logic. The foundational text of existing interpretations is a passage in Logik Jäsche that appears to attribute to Kant the view that reflection is a mental operation involved in the generation of concepts from non-conceptual materials. I argue against the received view by attending to Kant's division between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ general logic, identifying senses of reflection proper to each, and showing that none accords well with the received view. Finally, to take account of Kant's notio.. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that 1) Kant’s power of judgment is constitutively always reflecting, as its lawful employments involve a preliminary self-reference of the faculties the power of judgment itself is required to connect and let them match with each other. Accordingly, I claim that 2) the principle of purposiveness is the principle of the power of judgment as such, and not just of an allegedly self-standing reflecting branch of this faculty. I criticize the view that Kant draws a (...) dichotomy between reflecting and determining judgments and argue that 3) Kant’s point in the third Critique is to rule out the amphiboly between the reflecting and the determining employment of the principle of purposiveness. The power of judgment is, as such, always reflecting: while in the case of cognition it also works in a determining way, in the case of both aesthetics and teleology it is only reflecting, i.e., self-purposive – as it sets its function as its own end. (shrink)

Ever since Schopenhauer ́s accusation, it has been disputed whether Kant ́s few remarks concerning the ethical human-animal-relationship in the Lectures and in the Doctrine of Virtue fail to support ethical arguments on behalf of animals. One critique that plays a central role is whether Kant would have forbidden cruelty to brutes for educational purposes. In addition to these old objections, Kant ́s ethics is charged to be speciesistic by animal ethicists and animal rights philosophers at present.The following article examines (...) especially §17 of the Doctrine of Virtue, which is the only animal ethical text authorized by Kant himself. The interpretation starts by taking the context of §17 into account, particularly the “Episodic Section on an Amphiboly in Moral Concepts”. The systematic output of the cruelty-account and of the duty classes is then analyzed. Central for the understanding of Kant ́s argumentation relating to animals are the perfect duties to oneself, which are linked to Kant ́s foundation of human dignity. Finally the roles of the physical and emotional needs of brutes and humans in Kant ́s ethics are compared with each other. Some conclusions are then drawn concerning human and animal rights in relation to a duty-based argumentation. The article therefore appreciates Kant ́s integration of animal suffering into the very core of his virtue ethics, an integration that may be able to open the door for an enlightened animal ethics based on human responsibility. (shrink)

Ever since Schopenhauer´s accusation, it has been disputed whether Kant´s few remarks concerning the ethical human-animal-relationship in the Lectures and in the Doctrine of Virtue fail to support ethical arguments on behalf of animals. One critique that plays a central role is whether Kant would have forbidden cruelty to brutes for educational purposes. In addition to these old objections, Kant´s ethics is charged to be speciesistic by animal ethicists and animal rights philosophers at present.The following article examines especially §17 of (...) the Doctrine of Virtue, which is the only animal ethical text authorized by Kant himself. The interpretation starts by taking the context of §17 into account, particularly the “Episodic Section on an Amphiboly in Moral Concepts”. The systematic output of the cruelty-account and of the duty classes is then analyzed. Central for the understanding of Kant´s argumentation relating to animals are the perfect duties to oneself, which are linked to Kant´s foundation of human dignity. Finally the roles of the physical and emotional needs of brutes and humans in Kant´s ethics are compared with each other. Some conclusions are then drawn concerning human and animal rights in relation to a duty-based argumentation. The article therefore appreciates Kant´s integration of animal suffering into the very core of his virtue ethics, an integration that may be able to open the door for an enlightened animal ethics based on human responsibility. (shrink)

William of Ockham discussed the fallacy of amphiboly twice in his writings. The first treatment was in his Expositio super libros Elenchorum, where he simply presents Aristotle’s treatment, updates it with some Latin examples, and tells us it is not too important, since we do not often run into cases of ambiguity of thiskind. Later, in his Summa logicae, however, he extends his treatment appreciably. He here includes under ambiguous statements philosophical and theological sentences which are improperly stated. Led (...) by Aristotle, Augustine and Anselm, Ockham finds that in their writings they give us instances of improper statements which need to be restated properly before they can be evaluated as true or false. These leads provide for Ockham a key to unlocking the teaching treasures of the Ancients. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Threat Disguised as Reason Appeal to Inappropriate Authority Appeal to the Public Targeting the Person Accusing a Person of Hypocrisy The Appeal to Pity The Appeal to Ignorance The Use of Equivocal Language The Use of Amphiboly Conclusion.

For Kant, «reflection», the logical action that consists in elaborating concepts, also means, when it is «transcendental», the action of distinguishing within our knowing what belongs to each of the two sources of our representations – sensibility and understanding. In that respect, reflection is a central notion in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. But it is also essential to the understanding of Kant's relation to classical philosophy. Indeed, in the chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled «Amphiboly of (...) concepts of reflection», Kant takes a simultaneous stand on Leibniz and Locke, as he assignes them two symmetrical errors: according to Kant, Leibniz «intellectualized phenomena», while Locke «sensualised the concepts of the understanding». The present paper proposes to demonstrate how the reproach adressed to Leibniz might constitute an original approach for the interpretation of the problematic relation established in the Critique of Pure Reason between sensibility and understanding. (shrink)

Russian philosophy is “a sphere of conversation” in which thought is “divined”. It is a realm of search for “universal meaning” and “cultivation” of historical reality. Such a “conversation” around the work of Dostoyevsky took place in the 1920s among philosophers (including members of the Free Philosophical Association or Volfila in its abbreviated form). The theme takes on added significance at the hands of Ya. E. Golosovker and S. L. Frank whose intellectual affinity manifests itself today in the way they (...) interpret Kantian motives in the work of Dostoyevsky. Reflecting on “the logic of imagination” Golosovker draws attention to the fact that the concrete-metaphysical method of seeing the world is not identical to the amphiboly of Kant’s reflexive concepts. He made it the central theme of his book, Dostoyevsky and Kant, immersing the philosophical component of the novel The Brothers Karamazov in the context of Kant’s antinomies. The later Frank took up the subject of Dostoyevsky’s worldview in response, as it were, to the discussion of the problem of cultural crisis at Volfila (including at meetings “In Memory of Dostoyevsky”). Following Yakov Golosovker, Andrey Bely, Aron Steinberg, Semyon Lurie and others, he continued the discussion of the crisis in its organised forms. In this context, too, Kant is a significant presence. For Frank, as for Golosovker, Dostoyevsky’s world view has a “concrete-metaphysical character”. They come to this conclusion reflecting on the problem of freedom as seen by Dostoyevsky who sought to overcome Kant’s antinomies. (shrink)

The reply to Kanterian offers a rebuttal of his central criticisms. It reaffirms the difference between Kant's arguments in the Aesthetic and at B 148-9; it rejects the alleged error of logic in Fischer's (and my) arguments; and it rejects Kanterian's reading of passages in the Preface (A xx-xxii) and of the Amphiboly. Beyond these specific points Kanterian assumes that Kant's project in the first Critique cannot be understood as a and so begs the question at issue.

William of Ockham discussed the fallacy of amphiboly twice in his writings. The first treatment was in his Expositio super libros Elenchorum, where he simply presents Aristotle’s treatment, updates it with some Latin examples, and tells us it is not too important, since we do not often run into cases of ambiguity of thiskind. Later, in his Summa logicae, however, he extends his treatment appreciably. He here includes under ambiguous statements philosophical and theological sentences which are improperly stated. Led (...) by Aristotle, Augustine and Anselm, Ockham finds that in their writings they give us instances of improper statements which need to be restated properly before they can be evaluated as true or false. These leads provide for Ockham a key to unlocking the teaching treasures of the Ancients. (shrink)

L'objet principal de l'ouvrage d'Aristote intituléRéfutations sophistiquesest la théorie de la réfutation apparente, c'est-à-dire de l'argumentation qui, se développant dans le cadre d'un échange dialectique, masque quelque erreur. Aristote propose une taxinomie des réfutations apparentes d'après laquelle elles se rangent en deux groupes: celles qui relèvent du langage et celles qui n'en relèvent pas. Dans le premier groupe tombent six types de réfutation, l'homonymie, l'amphibolie, la liaison, la séparation, la forme de l'expression et l'accent; dans le deuxième l'accident, la conséquence, (...) l'ignorance de la réfutation, la fausse cause, l'interrogation multiple, la pétition de principe et la confusion de l'absolu et du relatif. Il s'agit de la fameuse table des treize paralogismes oufallaciœque la tradition a consacrée. Dans le cadre de ces treize types de sophisme le texte d'Aristote nous offre la discussion de maints exemples parmi lesquels certains étonnent pour leur difficulté, d'autres pour leur trivialité. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que les Lumières ? Comment les mêmes exigences de la raison peuvent-elles inspirer à la fois Voltaire et Robespierre ? Comment a-t-on pu si véhémentement critiquer la religion au nom de la raison, et instituer trente ans après une religion de la raison ? Comment la raison a-t-elle pu en 1763 inspirer à Voltaire son Traité de la tolérance et justifier en 1793 l'intolérance de la loi des suspects ? S'agit-il de circonstances malheureuses, de déviations ? Ou n'avons-nous pas (...) plutôt affaire à une aussi inévitable qu'insurmontable amphibolie de la raison ? Tantôt l'humble raison implore de l'erreur le droit pour la vérité de prendre place dans le cortège public des autres opinions : elle revendique la tolérance. Tantôt la raison triomphante interdit tout droit à l'injustice et à l'erreur : c'est l'intolérance de la vérité. S'il en était ainsi, on comprendrait que l'histoire n'eût fait depuis que se répéter. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que les Lumières? Comment les mêmes exigences de la raison peuvent-elles inspirer à la fois Voltaire et Robespierre? Comment a-t-on pu si véhémentement critiquer la religion au nom de la raison, et instituer trente ans après une religion de la raison? Comment la raison a-t-elle pu en 1763 inspirer à Voltaire son Traité de la tolérance et justifier en 1793 l'intolérance de la loi des suspects? S'agit-il de circonstances malheureuses, de déviations? Ou n'avons-nous pas plutôt affaire à une aussi (...) inévitable qu'insurmontable amphibolie de la raison? Tantôt l'humble raison implore de l'erreur le droit pour la vérité de prendre place dans le cortège public des autres opinions : elle revendique la tolérance. Tantôt la raison triomphante interdit tout droit à l'injustice et à l'erreur : c'est l'intolérance de la vérité. S'il en était ainsi, on comprendrait que l'histoire n'eût fait depuis que se répéter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical RefutationsMarina Berzins McCoyAristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations. Scott Schreiber. Albany: SUNY Press, 2003. pp. 240. $68.50, hardcover; $22.95, paperback.Scott Schreiber's Aristotle on False Reasoning is the first full-length English commentary on Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations in the last century. Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations is a text that has received relatively little attention (...) in the last century of scholarship, despite a revival of interest in other aspects of Aristotle's work concerned with the nature of good argument and rhetoric. (The 1995 French translation and commentary by Loius-Andre Dorion is a notable exception.) Schreiber finds the primary reason [End Page 92] for inattention to this text to lie in the tendency of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy to resolve problems in reasoning through linguistic clarification (xiv). Aristotle's claim that some errors are due to language while others lie outside the realm of linguistic error is not one to which contemporary analytic philosophy has been particularly sympathetic. The Sophistical Refutations has been neglected in light of contemporary logic. Schreiber's book attempts to return to Aristotle's project on his own philosophical terms, in order to better understand why Aristotle classified errors in reasoning as he did. Schreiber's approach is to examine each of the twelve types of false reasoning that Aristotle lays out in the Sophistical Refutations, with particular attention to Aristotle's examples, in order to understand the principles behind the overall system.Schreiber argues that Aristotle had good reason for separating errors due to language from those outside of language: Aristotle's classification of error is tied to his notion of the resolution of false arguments. To understand how to resolve a sophistical argument, we must first understand how it could have been believed to be true. Since Aristotle's aim in the Sophistical Refutations is to show why certain sorts of arguments are deceptive to some who hear them, his method of explaining errors is less a pure examination of their logical errors than of how such erroneous arguments can deceive. Aristotle is concerned with two types of problems with sophistical argument: first, why such an argument is false; and second, why it might appear to be true. Schreiber shows that most commentators have not given sufficient attention to the second of these concerns in their attempts to understand Aristotle's taxonomy. As Schreiber puts it, "Examples of false reasoning are unified into groups and differentiated into subgroups not by the nature of the confusions that they engender but by the different ways that confusion is cleared up" (54). False reasoning is due not only to mistakes in logic, but also to mistaken beliefs about language and reality. Careful examination of Aristotle's thinking allows us to see the importance of beliefs about the world in good and bad argument.For the most part, Schreiber's examinations of Aristotle's examples are lucid and helpful in understanding both the particular example at hand as well as the general picture of Aristotle's classifications. Schreiber continually returns to the importance of Aristotle's own view of language and argument in contrast to the approaches of contemporary linguistics and logic. For example, while some twentieth-century scholars have attempted to explain Aristotle's distinction between homonymy and amphiboly in terms of the contemporary distinction between semantics and syntax, [End Page 93] Aristotle seems to distinguish the two according to whether a general predicate signifies many particulars regardless of context, or in a propositional context (31). In the end, Schreiber does not think that the categories of homonymy and amphiboly can be completely distinct, even on Aristotle's own grounds, but still finds the categories useful. Schreiber is also careful to provide criticism of Aristotle's categories when warranted, both defending Aristotle against his contemporary critics when he thinks they have misunderstood him, and pointing out genuine weaknesses in Aristotle's arguments.Schreiber's book is clearly intended as a response to the contemporary Anglo-American reading of Aristotle. Much of the book assumes at least some familiarity with the ways in... (shrink)

In several places bertrand russell purports to present an argument proving that definite descriptions have no meaning. There have been several interpretations about what this argument is and whether it is valid. I evaluate these interpretations and then present my own. I argue that russell's argument is defective for turning on an equivocation, Which is camouflaged by amphibolies.

This dissertation is an interpretation of Kant's theory of mental representation, and an attempt to elucidate this theory by viewing it from both historical and contemporary perspectives. After an exposition of Kant's notions of intuition, sensation, and concept, I argue that the theory as a whole can be seen as an Aristotelian reaction against Leibnizian rationalism and Humean empiricism and naturalism. As in Aristotelian theories, Kant argues that there are two distinct types of mental representation, and two distinct types of (...) processes involved in cognition. ;I construe the Transcendental Deduction and the Second Analogy as a series of arguments against Hume for the thesis that our mental repertoire contains conceptual as well as passively received representations. The division of the anti-Humean arguments I find to be most fruitful is the division into arguments from above and arguments from below. I find it illuminating to view several aspects of Kant's anti-Humean arguments from the perspective of contemporary concerns in the theory of intentionality. Some of Kant's contentions against Hume can be seen as an attempt to resist a tendency to redescribe intentional relations so that the resulting description is extensional. Kant can be viewed as trying to preserve the idea that sentences describing intentional relations from the perspective of the subject are irreducibly intensional. ;I argue that the chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled 'The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection' together with portions of a later work, On a Discovery, contain an argument against Leibniz or the Leibnizians of Kant's day for the thesis that nonconceptual elements, as well as concepts, are required for the cognition of physical objects. Questions arise here about the relation between Kant's views on this issue and modern studies of indexicality. My view is that Kant can be construed as providing a theory about what underlies the irreducibly indexical element in our cognitions of physical objects. Kant's idea of passive receptivity, closely tied to the notion of what the experience of a quality is like, is relevant to this, as is the notion of an external or relational quality developed in the Amphiboly. (shrink)

In what follows, I will detail Kant's criticism of the Leibnizian conception of mind as it is presented in key chapters of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft . Approaching Kant with such a focus goes against the current predominant in contemporary Kant scholarship. Kant's engagement with Leibniz in the KrV is often taken as limited to the refutation of the latter's relational theory of space and time in the Aesthetic and the general criticism presented in the Amphiboly chapter, inasmuch (...) as Kant is taken to be primarily concerned with addressing empiricist opponents (a focus particularly evident in the English-language commentary). In addition, the argument against rational psychology in the Paralogisms is taken as challenging an essentially Cartesian position. The first two chapters of this project will introduce the Leibnizian conception of the mind, contrasting it with its Cartesian predecessor, and consider the career of the Leibnizian conception in the schools of 18th century Germany. As I will show, it was the Leibnizian conception of mind that held sway, despite scattered challenges, and that would have primarily been on Kant's mind when he turned to consider the extravagant claims of metaphysical psychology. In chapters 3-5, I turn to Kant's criticism of this conception as presented in the Transcendental Analytic of the KrV . There, I show how the subjective and objective deductions, in addition to the Amphiboly chapter, all address the Leibnizian claim of a parallelism between the investigations of the mental and the physical. In chapters 6-8, I consider the case against the Leibnizian conception of mind as presented in the Transcendental Dialectic, claiming that the doctrine of transcendental illusion plays an important (though largely ignored) role in explaining the grounds of the Leibnizian conception as it is transmitted in the rational psychology of Wolff, Baumgarten, Crusius, and Kant himself in the 1770's. Moreover, I argue that the limits Kant sets to empirical psychology are consistent with his criticism of the Leibnizian conception of mind, and, significantly, are motivated by deeper practical concerns. (shrink)

Kant, sans connaître les textes originaux, reproche à Platon nombre d’infractions au criticisme. La synthèse de sensibilité et d’intelligence dans la théorie de l’expérience, l’échelle des valeurs, les concepts de cause naturelle et de cause libre, la séparation entre âme et corps anticipent l’unité synthétique de l’aperception, le jugement synthétique a priori, l’amphibolie des concepts de réflexion, la topique transcendentale de la doctrine des antinomies. Anticipation du libre arbitre en morale, du génie et du plaisir désintéressé en esthétique.

This investigation joins recent research on problems with ambiguity in two fields, argumentation and computing. In argumentation, there is a concern with fallacies arising from ambiguity, including equivocation and amphiboly. In computing, the development of agent communication languages is based on conversation policies that make it possible to have information exchanges on the internet, as well as other forms of dialogue like persuasion and negotiation, in which ambiguity is a problem. Because it is not possible to sharply differentiate between (...) problems arising from ambiguity and those arising from vagueness, obscurity and indeterminacy, some study of the latter is included. The semantic web is based on what are called ontologies, or systems of classification of concepts, shown to be useful tools for dealing with these problems. (shrink)

In the section of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection Kant writes:Suppose that an object is exhibited to us repeatedly but always with the same intrinsic determinations . In that case, if the object counts as object of pure understanding then it is always the same object, and is not many but only one thing . But if the object is appearance, then comparison of concepts does not matter at all; rather, however much (...) everything regarding these concepts may be the same, yet the difference of locations of these appearances at the same time is a sufficient basis for the numerical difference of the object itself. Thus in the case of two drops of water we can abstract completely from all intrinsic difference , and their being intuited simultaneously in different locations is enough for considering them to be numerically different. (shrink)

Like any important philosophical work, De Docta Ignorantia cannot be understood by merely being read: it must be studied. For its main themes are so profoundly innovative that their author's exposition of them could not have anticipated, and therefore taken measures to prevent, all the serious misunderstandings which were likely to arise. Moreover, the themes are so extensively interlinked that a misunderstanding of any one of them will serve to obscure all the others as well. In such case, the mental (...) effort required of the reader-who-interprets must approximate the effort expended by the author-who- instructs. No words are more self-condemning than are those of John Wenck, at the conclusion of whose critique of De Docta Ignorantia we read: “Et sic est finis scriptis cursorie Heydelberg”: “And this is the end to what was written cursorily at Heidelberg.”1 Nicholas has not made his reader's task easy. For in spite of his claim to have explained matters “as clearly as I could” and to have avoided “all roughness of style,” many of his points escape even the diligent reader, since the explanation for them is either too condensed, or else too barbarously expressed, to be assuredly followed. And yet, from out of the vagueness, the ambiguity, the amphiboly, the enthymematic movement of thought, there emerges—for a reader patient enough to solliciter doucement les textes—an internally coherent pattern of reasoning. The present translation of this reasoning aims above all at accuracy.2 To this end the rendering is literal, though with no deliberate sacrifice of literate English expression. Only a literal translation (but not word for word) permits the subtle twists and turns of Nicholas's arguments to shine forth.3 The earlier, radically inaccurate rendering by Germain Heron (1954) distorts Nicholas's arguments— and thus belies history by making the author of De Docta Ignorantia appear as someone mindlessly unable to develop even the semblance of a systematic line of thought.. (shrink)

In this paper, Lévinas’s criticisms and reformulations of Sartre’s phenomenology of imagination, in the early text “Reality and its Shadow,” are explored in detail. Levinas's own views on imagination and art are shown to be intimately linked to his critique of Sartrean temporality, insofar as they rely on a renewed phenomenological examination of sensation. As a result, understanding Lévinas’s discussion of the image provides benefits for grasping his notion of the instant and its importance for some of his own positions (...) vis-à-vis temporality, e.g. on the future and death. The manner in which Lévinas takes issue with Sartre through a phenomenology of the image and and its composition in sensation is first investigated by looking at Lévinas’s novel choice to situate his descriptions of the image with respect to the function and power of art. Nevertheless, despite this crucial decision on Lévinas’s part, departing from earlier phenomenological accounts, there are clear parallels can be drawn between Lévinas’s and Sartre’s descriptions of the image. The similarites and differences between their treatments of the image and the role played therein by the materiality of sensation are then elucidated in terms of the ‘amphiboly’ of the image, distinguishing the image in both its representational and anti-representational characteristics. From there, we proceed to examine the amphiboly of the image according to its temporality attributes, seeing how for Lévinas and Sartre the temporality of the image, as that of an instant, relates to the temporality of consciousness in general. (shrink)

Kant attacks the Leibnizians on various fronts but the objection that occurs most frequently in his writings is that they are committed to an untenable conception of the relation between sensible and intellectual representations. They regard the difference between intellectual and sensible representations as a merely ‘logical’ difference that concerns their form, namely, their different degrees of distinctness, while in truth it is a difference in kind that concerns their nature, origin, and content. In the first part of this essay, (...) I provide a detailed reconstruction of what exactly this objection amounts to, and show why Kant takes this misconception to be so significant that he keeps coming back to it over and over again. The misconception is so significant because virtually all of the other mistaken doctrines of the Leibnizians can be traced back to it. Several commentators have argued that Leibniz is not guilty of the confusion of sensible and intellectual representations that Kant accuses him of. But this does not automatically clear him from all the other errors that Kant takes to be closely connected with this confusion. In the second part of this essay, I take a look at Leibniz's theory of confused perceptions and examine whether he is committed to one of these errors, namely, the view that we could learn something about things in themselves by experience if our senses were acute enough or our powers of 'disfusing' perceptions were strong enough. (shrink)